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Would love to see this flashlight in bronze, brass, or copper… no coating or anything. Just let it age naturally.

Wrote something about this, yes here it is:

The Miller wrote:

aginthelaw wrote:

i’ll take one of each (assuming a copper and titanium version will follow). otherwise, just this one

heheh this is the A
Who knows when this is a success B C and T might follow. Brass Copper Titanium (dang that it is not called Ditanium :D, can somebody ask the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to change Ti to Di for us ))

Ok, first of all, yes indeed I wanted to run out to the shop and make my own, straight away! But the pain in my left arm and shoulder is just too intense to attempt it.

The squared shoulders give a nice grip to this small of a light, allowing a light (not heavy) grip without losing it. The bead blasted finish also helps the light feel easy to grip, instead of slick as it would be if it were straight off the lathe in a polished style. If the machining is run slightly faster the tiny microscopic grooves or lines from the cutting tool will also give grip, almost invisible but felt in the hand.

I would like to see it remain square shouldered, with the bead blasted and anodized clear.

If the logo or namesake could be cut clean through the inner tube before it is anodized that would be very neat, lessening the weight of the tube while giving a stylish report of where the light got it’s origins. I believe there is a new Manker light that has the name Manker cut clean through the pocket clip, it’s in this style that I’m referring.

And in this post, my 2 cents are cast.

Thanks for the input, I found this light. That is indeed a good idea, we will consider that. Cutting something into the inner tube would also be quite cool, but I’d be a little scared that it created sharp edges which could rub of the plastic protection on the 18650 batteries when exchanging the batteries.

Xoden wrote:

So 20 or 22? It’s hard to guess by the sketch only.
It actually starts looking interesting as a compact host.

There are 20.5mm of space for parts and the outer diameter is 22mm (if I recall correctly). However, standard drivers won’t fit since it needs a circular pad for the switch signal on the bottom. But I don’t see a problem in publishing the design of the driver when it’s done so you can modify the design and or make a new driver.

Gunga wrote:

Can we make the clip ring flush with the tailcap instead of sticking up all around like that?

Ideally yes, but I was scared that there wouldn’t be enough material for the clip to be sturdy enough.

kaybi wrote:

Talking about the clip, any chances of getting a deep carry clip?

While I agree that a deep carry clip can be practical sometimes I think it looks a little awkward and also would yield in a very long clip since it needs to extend to the lug closest to the head. So I think it will be unlikely, but we’ll discuss it.
@ToyKeeper, since you have the Solarforce clip, would you mind measuring the inner diameter as well as the outer diameter and the thickness of the material?

In retrospect it looks like that Manker clip isn’t a clean through cut, I still think that would be neat though, spelling out what you want while skeletonizing it at the same time. A bead blast before ano would remove any burrs.

In retrospect it looks like that Manker clip isn’t a clean through cut, I still think that would be neat though, spelling out what you want while skeletonizing it at the same time. A bead blast before ano would remove any burrs.

You’re right, I didn’t notice that it isn’t cut through. Just after you mentioned it you notice the R would be floating…

@ToyKeeper, since you have the Solarforce clip, would you mind measuring the inner diameter as well as the outer diameter and the thickness of the material?

Sure, if I can find anything precise enough to measure it…

Okay, I managed to find some digital calipers. No idea how accurate they are, but the precision is 0.1 mm.

The SolarForce clip appears to be formed from a steel sheet 1.2mm thick. The ring is 1.4mm wide where it wraps around the light. The ring’s inner diameter is 22.4 mm, and the outer diameter is 25.3 mm. The main, long portion of the clip is 8.5mm wide.

The light itself measures 25.1 mm in diameter, so the clip ring sticks out a tiny bit. The threads measure 21.8 mm, which leaves the clip ring a bit loose.

I have the bulky Solarforce clip on a couple of Solarforce lights, in that context it works all right. The Sinner Cypreus is far too elegant a light , IMO, for the bulky Solarforce clip. I have the Titanium clips Sinner supplied on all of mine and they work fine. I’ve been asked to modify Sinner’s lights for the Steel Flamed clips that cost a fortune, in my opinion they are far too strong and do not yield which represents a possibility of damaging a copper light by ripping screws out of the threads. Just my 2 cents. That might be more valuable or less according to my status with Sinner, as I am essentially his North American Warranty Repair… I’ve seen a good many Sinner lights that people have messed up in one way or another.

Thusly I am saying that, in my experience, the strength of the Solarforce clip is too much for a small 14500 light. I either would remove such a clip from the FW3A or wouldn’t buy the light at all if it came with such a mismatched clip. Purely my own taste in lights and clips, of course.

I have the bulky Solarforce clip on a couple of Solarforce lights, in that context it works all right. The Sinner Cypreus is far too elegant a light , IMO, for the bulky Solarforce clip. I have the Titanium clips Sinner supplied on all of mine and they work fine. I’ve been asked to modify Sinner’s lights for the Steel Flamed clips that cost a fortune, in my opinion they are far too strong and do not yield which represents a possibility of damaging a copper light by ripping screws out of the threads. Just my 2 cents. That might be more valuable or less according to my status with Sinner, as I am essentially his North American Warranty Repair… I’ve seen a good many Sinner lights that people have messed up in one way or another.

Thusly I am saying that, in my experience, the strength of the Solarforce clip is too much for a small 14500 light. I either would remove such a clip from the FW3A or wouldn’t buy the light at all if it came with such a mismatched clip. Purely my own taste in lights and clips, of course.

It looks like the FW3A is about the same size as a Sinner Cypreus, just a few mm shorter. Big enough for the 18650 cell and not much else.

The clip will likely scratch it a little, but with the clear-anodized aluminum it shouldn’t be very noticeable. No screws to strip either, so a sturdy clip should be reasonably safe as long as it doesn’t clamp down hard enough to make it unusable.

My Cypreus has some small marks where the clip makes contact, but if I always keep it rotated to the same position it isn’t an issue. I tried using it without a clip for a while, but it didn’t take long before it rolled and fell and got dinged up, so I put the clip back on. It also helps add an extra mm internally for the battery, which has been helpful. This early model was a bit tighter inside than his later builds.

In any case, there’s a very good chance I’ll end up ordering a bunch of FW3A lights to give to people, since it seems like it’ll probably turn out to be unusually nice at a much lower price than anything else like it.

Okay, I managed to find some digital calipers. No idea how accurate they are, but the precision is 0.1 mm.

The SolarForce clip appears to be formed from a steel sheet 1.2mm thick. The ring is 1.4mm wide where it wraps around the light. The ring’s inner diameter is 22.4 mm, and the outer diameter is 25.3 mm. The main, long portion of the clip is 8.5mm wide.

The light itself measures 25.1 mm in diameter, so the clip ring sticks out a tiny bit. The threads measure 21.8 mm, which leaves the clip ring a bit loose.

Great, thank you! The diameter of the threads here is 22.5 mm and the outer diameter is 25.5 mm. So giving the clip some space to the diameter of the threads and starting at 22.7 mm it should be possible to make it flush to the outer diameter of the tailcap. Btw, the clip from oveready and darksucks both fit on the Sinner, in case you’re looking to replace the Solarforce one.

DB Custom wrote:

I have the bulky Solarforce clip on a couple of Solarforce lights, in that context it works all right. The Sinner Cypreus is far too elegant a light , IMO, for the bulky Solarforce clip. I have the Titanium clips Sinner supplied on all of mine and they work fine. I’ve been asked to modify Sinner’s lights for the Steel Flamed clips that cost a fortune, in my opinion they are far too strong and do not yield which represents a possibility of damaging a copper light by ripping screws out of the threads. Just my 2 cents. That might be more valuable or less according to my status with Sinner, as I am essentially his North American Warranty Repair… I’ve seen a good many Sinner lights that people have messed up in one way or another.

Thusly I am saying that, in my experience, the strength of the Solarforce clip is too much for a small 14500 light. I either would remove such a clip from the FW3A or wouldn’t buy the light at all if it came with such a mismatched clip. Purely my own taste in lights and clips, of course.

Your comment made me thinking if it wouldn’t be better to go for a 0.8 mm thick clip instead of 1 mm. I actually like the clamping force of my 0.8 mm clip.
Interesting, do you have any ideas for the improvement of the FW3A design based your experience with Sinner lights in order to avoid broken lights?

Humm, hard to resist, if there’s a hiCRI option or TK’s screen configuration, I won’t be able to justify not buying it …

Well the driver design is almost done with adaptation to allow a future firmware with screen config to be used, but it will not likely be a feature directly and probably requires flashing new firmware later if it gets done.